Merleau-Ponty describes the painter’s way off being in the world as unique to that of a writer, scientist, philosopher or musician. The act of painting – the physical relation of the painter to the world – is detached from the direct demands of life. Within seeing and painting the painter’s eyes and hands discover a skill to which the painter gives himself over to drawing from the world.
Before we go onto investigating the nature of painting, we must first understand what it means for a human being to be in the world. This being in the world must be read phenomenologically and not theoretically and objectively.
Not only do we as human beings move among each other and through the physical world, but we can also see each other and the physical …show more content…
The human body is an object that experience itself as itself and which are experienced within a world of other things outside itself. This can be explained physically by means of example that the one hand can touch the other hand. The second hand is both touched by the first hand and also touches the first hand. These are both experiences of the same body.
This paradox contribute to a conclusion that “the world is made of the very stuff of the body”. And since it is already determined that the body and vision are inseparable, it can be said that vision, body and world are ultimately intertwined (Merleau-Ponty, 1993:128). The human body is a thing among other things, bound up in the fabric of this world – the physical. It is at this point that Merleau-Ponty’s work is narrated by a metaphor.
“The human by is present when, between the seer and the visible, between toughing and touched, between one eye and the other, between hand and hand a kind of cross over occurs, when the spark of sensing/sensible is lit, when the fire starts to burn that will not cease until some accident befalls the body, undoing what no accident would have sufficed to do…” (Merleau-Ponty, …show more content…
These thoughts are implemented in the act of painting. The elements of vision – light, colour and depth – are not physical attributes to our vision, they are not tangible objects or real things however, their existence are real. They appear in front of us only because our bodies recognise their existence in themselves. Herein we find that the visible stuff in the world has an “internal equivalent” in our bodies (Merleau-Ponty, 1993:129). This “internal equivalent” should not be understood simply as a representation of that which are visible to the body. We do however experience the presence of the things visible in an intuitive way. We can’t distinct between the thing we see and the idea we have of it just as there are no distinction between that which are seen and the one who sees. In painting this distinctless relation is also present between the image and its
Before we go onto investigating the nature of painting, we must first understand what it means for a human being to be in the world. This being in the world must be read phenomenologically and not theoretically and objectively.
Not only do we as human beings move among each other and through the physical world, but we can also see each other and the physical …show more content…
The human body is an object that experience itself as itself and which are experienced within a world of other things outside itself. This can be explained physically by means of example that the one hand can touch the other hand. The second hand is both touched by the first hand and also touches the first hand. These are both experiences of the same body.
This paradox contribute to a conclusion that “the world is made of the very stuff of the body”. And since it is already determined that the body and vision are inseparable, it can be said that vision, body and world are ultimately intertwined (Merleau-Ponty, 1993:128). The human body is a thing among other things, bound up in the fabric of this world – the physical. It is at this point that Merleau-Ponty’s work is narrated by a metaphor.
“The human by is present when, between the seer and the visible, between toughing and touched, between one eye and the other, between hand and hand a kind of cross over occurs, when the spark of sensing/sensible is lit, when the fire starts to burn that will not cease until some accident befalls the body, undoing what no accident would have sufficed to do…” (Merleau-Ponty, …show more content…
These thoughts are implemented in the act of painting. The elements of vision – light, colour and depth – are not physical attributes to our vision, they are not tangible objects or real things however, their existence are real. They appear in front of us only because our bodies recognise their existence in themselves. Herein we find that the visible stuff in the world has an “internal equivalent” in our bodies (Merleau-Ponty, 1993:129). This “internal equivalent” should not be understood simply as a representation of that which are visible to the body. We do however experience the presence of the things visible in an intuitive way. We can’t distinct between the thing we see and the idea we have of it just as there are no distinction between that which are seen and the one who sees. In painting this distinctless relation is also present between the image and its